Flash Points In West Bank And Gaza Ignite Again

By WILLIAM A. ORME Jr.

Published: October 5, 2000

BEITUNIYA, West Bank, Oct. 4—
About 2 this morning, neighbors say, Mahmoud Ibrahim Abu-Khalil and nine or more other members of the local Fatah militia here crept out on a rocky ridge overlooking a highway crossing and an Israeli military post and opened fire with their Kalashnikovs.

It is unclear whether they were aiming at the army post, cars of Jewish settlers passing below or something else. Al Fatah, the largest and best-organized Palestinian faction, founded and still led by Yasir Arafat, is accused by Israeli officials of being behind the current violence.

These Fatah men were no match for the Israeli Army sharpshooters a thousand feet across the way.

As their companions fled, Mr. Abu-Khalil, 23, and another Fatah fighter were picked off by what witnesses described as the red pinpoint light of laser-targeted rifles, becoming almost immediately the 55th and 56th confirmed deaths in the worst sustained week of violence in the region in four years.

''We looked for him for an hour, shouting, 'Mahmoud, Mahmoud!' and we found him lying there, in dirt that was soaked with blood,'' said Abu Musa al-Kheldi. ''His rifle was about a yard away.''

The number of dead since Friday climbed today to at least 65, all but 3 of them Palestinians. Two Israeli soldiers and a Jewish Israeli civilian were killed earlier in the week.

Even as Mr. Arafat and Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel met in Paris this afternoon in an avowed effort to stop the fighting, flash points reignited throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

For the second time in five days, a small boy was killed at the crossroads near Netzarim, a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli troops again battled snipers and rioters with rockets and automatic weapons fire. The boy was identified as Muhammad Abu Assi, 9, who witnesses said had been seen throwing stones at the heavily fortified Israeli Army post there.

The army today officially acknowledged for the first time that its troops had shot and killed a 12-year-old boy at the Netzarim junction on Saturday.

But the statement angered Palestinians further by asserting that the boy -- who has become a symbol of what they view as the disproportionate use of force by the Israelis -- had joined in the rock-throwing attacks on the Israeli post there, a charge that the boy's family denied.

In Nablus in the West Bank, rioting erupted after a funeral for a Palestinian who was killed on Tuesday in clashes there, followed by exchanges of gunfire with Israeli troops stationed at Joseph's Tomb, a Jewish holy site within Palestinian territory.

At Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, another Jewish holy site in a Palestinian-ruled West Bank town that has also been the scene of constant clashes, the Israeli Army reported that four soldiers had been injured in fighting with rioters there today.

Gun battles broke out tonight near Jewish settlements in the West Bank, while Arabs living within Israel again clashed with the police in Jaffa, the ancient port town next to Tel Aviv.

In Beituniya, a small town between Ramallah and Jerusalem, about 2,000 people turned out for Mr. Abu-Khalil's funeral today, offering another example of what has often appeared to be a self-perpetuating cycle of bloodshed, mourning and violent retribution.

In this swiftly rotating sequence of emotions and events, the machinery of martyrdom gets into gear quickly.

Within hours of his death, the Beituniya branch of the Fatah movement had already printed glossy posters eulogizing Mr. Abu-Khalil as ''a hero of the intifada of Al Quds.''

''Intifada'' is Arabic for ''uprising,'' and Al Quds is the Arab term for Jerusalem and, more specifically, the Muslim holy places there that were the catalyst for the last six days of violence after a visit to the site by the right-wing Israeli politician Ariel Sharon.

The posters featured a color photo of Mr. Abu-Khalil posing in a leather jacket with an upraised automatic rifle.

Before noon, when he was buried in the local cemetery here, the posters had been pasted to nearly every storefront in town. The parade of mourners, many in groups organized by Al Fatah and other political factions, blocked traffic for 10 blocks, chanting slogans and waving Palestinian flags. The city government of Ramallah, where Mr. Abu-Khalil was a member of a green-uniformed municipal security force, sent a commemorative wreath to the grave site.

After the burial, Mr. Abu-Khalil was extolled by his former 10th-grade teacher, Mr. Kheldi, who had found the body.

''Even as a boy, as a member of Fatah youth, during the intifada, he was one of the bravest,'' Mr. Kheldi said, referring to the Palestinian uprising that began in 1987. ''He was a good person. Now they have shot him. The Israelis have killed him.''

In contrast to other recent funerals -- including the burial near Bethlehem this morning of the other Fatah fighter killed here, which triggered a brief clash with the Israeli police -- the crowd left somberly and quietly, avoiding places of possible further confrontation with Israeli forces.

''This is a Fatah crowd,'' said a Palestinian journalist observing the funeral, ''and they do not want to upstage Arafat today.''

Israeli officials accuse Al Fatah's military wing, and by extension Mr. Arafat himself, of organizing much of the recent rioting and armed exchanges with Israeli soldiers.

''This is not a spontaneous popular uprising,'' said Maj. Yarden Vatikai, an Israeli military spokesman. ''It is a war between an organization and the Israeli Defense Force.''

The reaction of Mr. Abu-Khalil's friends and neighbors to this morning's shooting death suggest that many would take Major Vataika's accusation as a compliment. As the Fatah band traded fire with Israeli soldiers, it retreated to the eaves of a small apartment building. The steel front doors were pierced repeatedly by high-velocity Israeli bullets, and residents said their children had been screaming during the exchange.

Yet rather than see the encounter as an example of reckless endangerment, they praised Mr. Abu-Khalil and his Fatah militiamen for confronting the Israeli military.

''It is true that we were all in danger, but it was for the cause of Palestine,'' said Muhammad Kabneh, 54, the patriarch of a Bedouin family of 23, sipping tea and smoking a water pipe on a porch overlooking the Israeli Army post. ''My neighbors all left today, but I said no, we stay in our house, and if we die in our house, we die in our house.''

Photo: Palestinians from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jebel Mukhaber barricaded a road yesterday with burning tires. A Palestinian policeman from the neighborhood was killed earlier in the day near Ramallah. (Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times)